Living is An Act of Courage
by CupcakeSprinkles14
Summary: Day after day, Pan's life had always been a slog. The same routine, every waking hour. She wishes things were different, she wishes for a change, something to alter her life forever. When America is invaded, Pan realizes you must be careful what you wish for as she becomes part of the rebellious Wolverines and struggles to confront her weird feelings about her best friend Robert.
1. Chapter 1

Pan sighed and rolled her eyes. "Robert," she hissed, "put the camera down!" Her friend ignored her, continuing to record the goings on of the football game. Everyone was cheering, the atmosphere tense as the home team, the Wolverines, were currently losing. Pan was on the edge of her seat (even though she wasn't sitting in one) but kept getting distracted by her best friend trying to record the game. For a reason she still wasn't completely clear on. "Robert!" she insisted. "You're distracting me!"

"Sssh!" Robert replied, waving her insisting off. "I've nearly got my money shot!"

Daryl returned from the concession stand, a hot dog in his hand. "You getting this, Rob?" he asked.

"All of it," Robert answered.

Pan rolled her eyes. She could never understand her friend's fascination with technology. How they could get so dedicated and attached to things? Right now they were obsessed with getting the entirety of the football game on tape and the 'money shot' Robert was talking about was when the Wolverines pulled through and won. A large part of Pan knew it was a lost cause but she didn't want to tell her friend this. It was like kicking a puppy just for the fun.

"Come on!" Pan roared, joining the audience in their encouraging screams. Even though they were losing, the Wolverine fans always screamed for the players to keep going, to keep fighting, to never give up and never, ever back down. It was what she loved about the home team. Even when the ending was inevitable, they still fought hard.

Robert pointed the camera lens at her and she scowled, covering it with her hands. "Don't," she said, knowing that Robert knew that she didn't like being filmed. Which was a difficult thing for Robert to accept, since tech was basically his and Daryl's mistress. Yes, they shared a mistress. And sometimes it wasn't pretty. Especially when the newest apple or windows or itech thing came out. They didn't admit it, but it was always a competition to see who got the better version and who got it first.

"I want to get some footage of dedicated fans screaming for the team to win," Robert said, sounding like a five year old who'd been told he couldn't have a cookie. Pan laughed and rolled her eyes, jerking her thumb behind herself to point at the other roaring fans.

"Then film them," she said.

They turned back around to face the field. Pan jumped on the spot, getting excited as the Wolverines started catching up again. Even Daryl and Robert, people who weren't interested in sports at all, got slightly worked up the closer to the end of the final half came to a close. "Come on, come on, come on," Daryl muttered under his breath.

"Come on!" Pan screamed, not caring about being quiet. Her voice was lost in the mass of others, drowning in a sea of anxiety and excitement. "You can do it!"

They didn't do it. They lost. The moment the buzzer went, Pan deflated, trying to fight her disappointment at their loss. You could feel the air of the other disappointed fans, the air tense and thick with the lingering shouts of success that wouldn't be yelled. Not tonight anyway.

"No money shot," Robert sighed as they exited school grounds. He still had the camera on, pointing it at Daryl. "So Daryl, how are you feeling about the team's loss?"

"I'm not going to lie, pretty disappointed," Daryl sighed.

Pan tried not to snort. She was pretty sure Daryl wasn't disappointed in the team's loss, more of the loss of their movie making money shot. Robert turned to face Pan but she ducked under the lens' vision, running around to stand behind him like Daryl. Robert tried to follow her but she kept going round in circles until it turned into a game of run-around.

"Come on, Pan!" Robert exclaimed after this went on maybe a bit longer than it should have. "Just do this for the documentary!"

"I'll answer your question, just don't point that thing at me," Pan said.

Robert sighed heavily but pointed the camera ahead. Sure that he wasn't going to turn it on her again, Pan fell back in step beside him. "So," Robert said, "how do you feel about the team's loss, Pandora?"

Pan's eyes widened in horror at the use of her full name, her face a picture of scandalization. She thumped Robert, snickering when he yelped. "I know many people are probably disappointed with the Wolverine's loss," she gave Daryl a pointed look, grinning when he jokily sneered at her, "but I also know that the team will get through it. We may have lost the battle, but the war rages on."

Robert stared at her for a moment before blinking and shaking his head. He snapped the camera shut and grinned. "I think we've got ourselves a winning documentary. All we need is maybe a couple of interviews from some of the players and I'll be getting my A."

"That's why I didn't pick film class," Pan pointed out. "Too much work."

"No," Robert said, "you didn't pick film class because you can't comprehend the glory of modern technology like we tech geeks do."

"You told me I was a geek the other day," Pan frowned.

"You're a literature geek," Daryl clarified.

"What does that mean?"

Robert shrugged. "Where we'd get excited about the latest nikon being released, you'd get excited about the Hunger Instrument's latest book."

"The what?" Pan asked.

"One of your book series'," Daryl simplified.

"Ohhhh," Pan dragged out. "I get it." It was true, she was a sucker for YA books. Even though she was bodering legal adult, she always fell for books intended for the younger generation. She had a habit of getting attached to the characters and plot so severely she'd hit people if they insulted them. Once she even beat Robert with a stick for making fun of her favourite character Peeta . . .

Sometimes she wished she could have a life like the characters in her books. A life full of adventure and twists. She wanted to have excitement, to live on the edge, to have a love interest who adored her so much he would put everything on the line for her, and her for him. She wished her life wasn't boring.

"So, when are you two jinnies going to decide on a date to go to the shooting range?" Pan asked.

Robert winced. "Uh . . . You see, the thing is . . ."

"Robert has hoplophobia," Daryl finished for him.

"No I don't!" Robert snapped.

Pan was confused. "What's hoplophobia?" she asked.

"It's an intense fear of guns," Daryl explained. "I'm serious, everytime he sees someone get shot on t.v, he almost throws up."

"Shut up, Daryl," Robert hissed through clenched teeth. They arrived at the bar where the Wolverines were gathering to console themselves and lick their wounds. Even though they weren't legal age to drink yet, Pan knew Robert would want to get into the thick of it to get some shots of the team's reactions to the game.

The bar was alive with voices, the room full of life even though the team had lost. Trust the citizens of Spokane to keep the tempo up, even when the next town over beat them. They found a booth by a window, not really the most secluded of places but was the closest to get to with everyone crushed together so tightly.

"Hold up," Pan said as they sat down the booth. "I've known you since we were in diapers Robert and you never mentioned a fear of guns."

Robert laughed, a sound tinted with hysterics, and rubbed the back of his neck. "It never came up."

"Until you brought up the shooting range thing," Daryl said.

"We didn't _have_ to go," Pan told them. "I mean, it was just an idea for something to do at the weekend. I wasn't going to jump off a cliff if you had have said no. Why didn't you just tell me?"

Robert was polishing the camera lens while she spoke, refusing to meet her gaze. She couldn't understand why he couldn't have just told her he had hoplophobia. It wasn't a big deal. Everyone had things they were scared of. Heck, Pan hated ladybirds. Their eyes freaked her out. Worst thing was, her mom never let her kill the insects because they were apparently something to do with the virgin Mary. Well, Pan wasn't religious and wished she could squash the little shits under her foot.

A part of her knew why Robert hadn't told her. He had this thing where he thought that if he was scared of something, it made him weak. She supposed it came from his father, the tough loving christian who beat his son around the head with the bible every time he did wrong. On many occasions Pan had wished that Robert could come and live with her, but he always refused the offer. It was weird, how he could still love his family so much, even when his father made him pray for forgiveness for hours on end just because he couldn't finish a meal and his mother just watched.

Pan sighed and forced a smile. "It doesn't matter, I'd probably knock my nut because of the kick back anyway," she joked, trying to lighten the mood.

Robert tried to fight it at first but a smile broke out across his face. "Yeah, you probably would," he said.

What followed this was a massive debate about which was more important in modern society: books or technology. Pan ultimately lost because it was two against one but that this point their order of fries had been put on the table so she could stuff her mouth with them and take her defeat with a gobfull of delicious greasy french fries.

As conversation switched to idle chit-chat, Robert occasionally recording the bar's atmosphere and the player's talking. Pan may not understand it, but his desperation to make every one of his films perfect was endearing. A cute little trait she wished she had in herself. Most of the time she just threw together a slap up project for school work and even then she'd only just manage to pass. She just really didn't have the energy to be obsessive about school work. It just didn't seem that important.

A girl entered and, as she passed them, took a handful of fries off their plate. Pan scowled and watched the girl as she went to the bar and started talking to Jed. She didn't know much about Jed other than this boy in her math class Matt's brother and had been away fighting in Iraq or something. The girl who started talking to him was the gorgeous type, the kind of girl who wouldn't spare people like them a second glance. To her, Pan and Robert and Daryl were just nerds. People she could steal fries from and who would maybe be able to invent something she could find useful in the future. People like her made Pan sick.

Robert and Daryl stared at the girl like she was the living embodiment of Aprohdite. Pan's eyebrows screwed up incredulously and she leaned across the table and smacked them both, hoping to knock some sense back into them. "You do realize a girl like her would just walk all over you two, right?" she asked.

"She can walk all over me any day," Daryl said, almost dozily. Robert pulled a face and Daryl cottoned on to what he just said. "Did I say that out loud?" he asked in horror.

Pan laughed. "Stick to the day job, Daryl," she said.

Then everything was dark.

Power cuts weren't uncommon in Spokane but they weren't frequent either. The entire bar went silent, after the intial panic of the cut shimmered down. As everyone piled out after finding out that it might take a while to get the power back up, Pan wondered what caused it. The weather wasn't bad so it couldn't have been that. Had someone snapped a power line? Was that even possible?

"Maybe it's a drill," Daryl suggested as they blindly made their way back to his house. "You know, to see how the town reacts to emergencies."

"Well, if that's true, I'm pretty sure we're going to fail," Robert said. He was probably referring to the pack of drunk college kids who declared as they left the bar, _"Let's go to the park and get wasted!"_ despite the fact they were all told to go home.

"You're right," Pan said, holding her hands out infront of herself so she didn't bump into anything. Occasionally her hand would brush the fabric of Robert's jacket and the feeling of the famaliar material alone comforted her, confirming that her best friend was there and hadn't disappeared. "Those guys can go and get themselves arrested. We'll do the sensible thing and congregate in Daryl's house."

Whenever they stayed out late, they always stayed in the person's house who is closest. Which was, in this case, Daryl's. His dad was the mayor of Spokane and was always busy but he didn't mind if they stayed over as long as they didn't make much noise. Pan's parents weren't the type to say no to her and they had known Robert as much as she had and approved of Daryl so they knew there would be no funny business. As for Robert . . . well . . . his parents weren't really the social types.

Pan's hand brushed Robert's jacket again and she curled her fingers around the material. "We should start a conga line," she said. "Ba-da-da-da-da-da-DA!" She didn't a funny dance with her feet and nearly tripped up Daryl, who she hadn't realized had gotten closer to her in the darkness.

"Will Meth be okay without you there?" Robert asked as they reached Daryl's house and made their way up to the porch.

Meth was what they called Pan's younger brother. His full name was Epimetheus but try saying that nearly every day and you'd shorten it too. Their mom and dad were obsessed with Greek Mythology and had a soft spot for the story of Pandora's Box. They were so obsessed that they decided to call their baby girl Pandora and her brother Epimetheus. At first Pan thought that her parents hated her and that's why they gave her the most horrid name imaginable but she grew to realize that they did it because they loved the story and they loved their children just as much. But she perferred to be called Pan and her brother perferred to be called Meth.

"Meh, he's fifteen, I'm sure he can survive. Knowing him he'll have a girl over to snuggle with in the dark," Pan answered. Their parents were away on business but Pan had left Meth home alone overnight before and he had survived just fine. The only difference between now and then was that there was a power cut. As long as he could find the torch in the bottom drawer of the kitchen and didn't trip over his own shoelaces, he'd be just fine.

"Snuggle?" Robert asked, a tint of disbelief in his tone.

"Okay, you know I don't mean snuggle," Pan replied. They crossed the threshold into the house and Daryl quickly locked the door. Robert tried the lights but the power cut seemed to have affected the entire town, public housing and all.

"Daryl, is that you?" His father called from upstairs.

"Yeah dad, it's me!" Daryl called back up. "Robert and Pan are with me!"

"Okay! You kids don't stay up too long now!"

"We won't!" Pan replied. She wanted to act like she was kidding but she actually was tired. "I call the sofa!" They had gotten so used to their routine of staying in each other's houses that Daryl was able to sleep up in his room while Pan and Robert stayed in the living room on their own. There was always competition between Pan and Robert to see who got the couch first. Pan would like to say that she almost always won but it was always 50/50 and you had to choose the right time to claim it.

She ran into the living room, a bit too eagerly, and banged her hip on the rocking chair that she forgot sat by the couch. Feeling like she had been shot but pulling through, Pan dragged herself onto the couch and sighed, putting her hands behind her head and crossing her ankles, waiting for Robert to join her.

"Daryl said goodnight," Robert said as he felt his way into the room.

"Night Daryl!" Pan yelled, hoping he'd heard her. Robert clamoured into the armchair that sat by the head of the couch. Pan squinted, trying to see him through the dark, only able to see the outline of him when her eyes adjusted. He moved around incessantly, trying to get himself comfortable. "Will you settle down, you're making me nervous."

"I'm not as bad as you when you're in this chair," Robert replied. "All you do is whine."

"Do not!" Pan exclaimed.

"_'This isn't fair Robert, I didn't know we could claim it outside the house,' 'Daryl's dad should get a better chair, this one is as stiff as a board,' 'Hey Rob, you know the way you're my best friend? Want to switch with me?'_" Robert recited, even trying to mimick how she spoke.

Pan laughed at how he sounded nothing like her. "Shut up," she chuckled, knowing full well that he was right and that she did gripe and groan a bit too much when she had to sleep in the armchair, "and go to sleep."

"Whatever you say Pandora," Robert replied.

Pan rolled her eyes and thumped him. Robert laughed before finally getting comfortable and settling down. Pan sighed and let her eyes flutter closed, the serenity of the silent dark comforting her and lulling her into a peaceful sleep.

~xXx~

The house was shaking.

Pan's eyes shot open. It was day time, maybe early morning, and the house was rattling. Was it an earthquake? When she sat up on the couch, the rattling stopped and the house settled. Pan exhaled in relief. It wasn't an earthquake.

A second later, the house shook again.

When she stood up, the floor was vibrating beneath her feet. Scared out of her wits, Pan went to the armchair where Robert slept, shaking his shoulder desperately. "Rob, wake up," she whisper-hissed.

"What is it, Pan?" Robert muttered sleepily.

"I think we're having an earthquake!"

Robert's eyes opened just as quickly as hers had and he bolted upright in the chair. The house had settled again but the shaking returned moments later. Pan could hear something in the distance, something she couldn't make out. It was distant but sounded like it was getting closer.

"That's not an earthquake," Robert murmured.

"Then what is it?!" Pan exclaimed.

Daryl came flying down the stairs, fully dressed and looking panicked. "Guys, have you looked outside?" he asked, his breathing raspy and his voice terrified.

"No," Pan said, her heart pounding. "What's outside?"

Daryl didn't answer, instead he ran the nearest window and looked out. Pan and Robert followed, peering out onto the street. Pan's blood was pumping in her ears and she feared that Daryl and Robert could hear her heart as it battered itself in her ribcage.

When she realized what was happening, her heart stopped completely and the world seemed to go on pause. She didn't hear the screaming or crying, see the explosions or debris, it was like the picture out of one of her books, fictional, not real.

"Oh my god," Robert whispered, inaudibly.

There were bombs falling from the sky.

They were being invaded.

**A/N: This little plot bunny has been brewing within me for a while now. I know it's REALLY different from what I usually write but sometimes difference is good, healthy for the mind :)**

**Please R&R on your thoughts and whether I should continue or not?**


	2. Chapter 2

Pan pushed away from the window and ran out into the foyer. She skidded on the carpet and tripped over her laces, slamming into Daryl's door with a loud bang. Her hands fumbled for the doorknob, twisting it once she found purchase and throwing it open. As soon as the doorway was open, Pan's senses were battered with chaos. People were screaming, bombs were dropping from the sky, soliders with parachutes slowly falling to the ground from fighter planes. Pan's heart was about to explode, her panic beyond comprehension. She felt so scared. What was happening? Who was invading them?

Robert came out of the house right behind her, Daryl following close behind. They stared in horror as the pandemonium didn't stop. It unfolded before their eyes like the events of a horror show. The three of them stood, paralysed with fear, as planes soared above their heads, shooting at the enemy and sending them tumbling to the ground.

A massive explosion rocked the ground beneath their feet and they were knocked to the ground. Pan screamed as something hot blasted her skin, making it feel like it was being knawed away, and debris fell around her. She forced her eyes open and pushed herself to kneel, her bones rumbling even though the explosion had ended. "Robert! Daryl!" she exclaimed, scrambling around to find her friends sitting up as well, relatively unharmed. "What was that?!"

"A plane crashed!" Robert replied, having to raise his voice to be heard over the discord. Pan's ears were ringing and she only barely heard him. She had never seen her friend so panicked before, his eyes so wide the whites of his eyes were terrifyingly bright. He stood up and he grabbed her sleeve, pulling her up with him. He dragged Daryl up to.

Pan's legs were still trembling, her bones vibrating, she had to clutch Robert's arm to hold herself up. The whole street was in disarray. People were run ramped, screaming and trying to escape from the horror that was falling from the sky. Pan supposed they should have been doing the same instead of standing in Daryl's front yard, frozen in abhorrence.

"What are we going to do?!" Daryl yelled.

"Get back in the house!" Pan decided, turning on her heel to run. Robert grabbed her wrist and stopped her, pulling her back to where she stood.

"What if a bomb hits the house?" he said. "We'd be dead!"

"We're no better out here!" Pan exclaimed. The realization that they were no longer safe anywhere dawned on her. She rubbed her hand over her face to waken herself up and tugged at her hair desperately. The longer they waited, the closer the soliders got to the ground.

A truck suddenly barrelled around the corner, speeding down the street as fast as ligtening. At first Pan thought it was the soliders but on second glance she realized it was a pick-up truck. Matti from her math class stuck his head out the front window and yelled, "Get in!"

Even though they barely knew him, they didn't think twice. Daryl jumped into the back first and Robert followed, having to run before he jumped. Pan was too busy worrying about them getting in safely that she almost forgot about herself. Her heart palpatated when she realized it had driven past her. She took off running after it, the fear of the explosions and gunfire surrounding her increasing her speed.

When she neared the back of the truck, she leaped forward, soaring through the air had a breakneck speed and slamming into the back with a painful thump, grabbing onto the back and holding on for dear life. Her feet skidded and tripped on the road as the truck continued to barrel forward.

"Pan! Grab my hand!" Robert yelled. He pulled himself up and held his hand out for her to grab. Pan stretched out and grabbed his wrist, taking a risk and letting go with her other hand to grab the front of his shirt for leverage. Pan felt like she was going to fall and tried not to scream, relying on Robert to pull her over.

With a mighty heave, Robert dragged her up and over into the truck. Pan's heart was tying to kill itself in her chest and she felt like she was on the verge of hyperventilation. They hit the deck at the back of the truck, trying not to fall about and skid around as it roared up the road, every twist and turn causing them to bump into each other.

Every part of Pan's body got bumped and scraped as she stayed pressed to the floor. Robert was right beside her, Daryl hopefully there too. The choas continued around them, screams of the damned roaring in her ears, not pausing when she covered them with her hands to blot it out.

The truck jerked to a stop, causing Pan to bang into Robert, her foot catching on what felt like Daryl's elbow. Curious as to why they stopped, Pan peered out over the back of the truck.

Ah, that's why.

Matti's girlfirend Erica's street. He was going to get her too. The whole school knew about their relationship and how intense they were about it. Pan would even go as far to say that they loved each other. There was no way Matti was going anywhere without her. Erica was a nice girl, she lived on the same street as Pan and they used to be close when they were younger. Pan knew her for almost as long as she knew Robert. But not quite.

"Erica!" Matti yelled.

Pan's heart stopped when she saw soliders preventing her and her family from getting to Matti and the truck. What were they doing? Were they going to kill them? Kidnap them? Take them to concentration camps? The possibilites were endless, all of them horrifying. Meth could probably come up with more . . .

Meth . . .

Meth!

"My brother!" Pan exclaimed, leaping out of the truck.

"Pan!" Robert shouted after her.

"Pan, come back!" Daryl yelled.

"Epimetheus!" Pan screamed, barelling down the road to her house, which was located at the end of the street. "METH! GET OUT OF THE HOUSE NOW!" The door to her house flew open and she skidded to a stop. Two figures came out, one having a firm grip on the other, who was struggling. Pan jogged closer, her blood heating up when she realized a solider had a hold of her brother. "METH!" Pan screamed louder, not caring if she caught everyone's attention.

"Pan!" Meth yelled, managing to elbow the solider in the jaw. She let go momentarily, splatters of blood flying from her face. "Pan!" Meth started off towards her, running as fast as he could. Pan sped up, both of them running to each other like the cheesy movies where two lovers would run to each other across a beach or a field of dandelions.

Then solider straightened up. She wiped the blood from her face and picked up her gun. Pan's world slowed down, her muscles aching and her heart pounding, as the bullet fired out of the nozzle of the gun.

And pierced right through her brother's head.

"METH!" Pan screamed, catching her brother as he fell and falling to her knees under his weight. "METH, NO!" His face was covered in blood and he wasn't breathing. Pan screamed, cradling his body in her arms and holding her face to his, not caring that the blood was smearing her face. "Meth, wake up please! Don't do this! METH!"

Someone grabbed the back of her shirt and hauled her up into the air. Pan screamed even louder, the pain over her brother's death too big to bear. She was dragged back into the back of the truck, where Robert forced her to the floor as more bullets were fired. The truck was moving again, travelling even more violently than before. Pan pushed Robert away and tried to jump off the truck. She had to get back to her brother, she had to get back to her brother, she had to-

"Epimetheus!" she roared as the truck whirled around a corner, her brother's body no longer in sight. Robert grabbed her around the waist, preventing her from jumping, but couldn't get her to stop struggling. "Robert let go of me, I have to get back to METH!"

With a sudden outburst of strength, Robert somehow managed to pulled her down and hold her close to his chest. Pan struggled for another minute but eventually gave in and started to sob. "My b-b-b-brother!" she cried.

"I'm so sorry," Robert whispered, sounding near tears himself. Pan supposed it was about right. Robert and Meth used to be close when they were little, always teasing her when she had to wear frilly pink dresses when they went out together. When Pan wasn't around, Robert and Meth spent time together.

Epimetheus was dead. They killed him. Pan felt empty inside. But it seemed like this was only the beginning.

The beginning of the end.

**A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed! :)**


	3. Chapter 3

Matti and his brother Jed had a cabin up on a hill away from the city. By the time they reached it, Pan had no tears left to cry. Robert held her in the back of the truck, not sure what else to do other than tell her occasionally that it was going to be alright. Pan wished she could believe him but it was hard to miss how hollow his voice sounded. He didn't believe it either.

The cabin wasn't very large. But it was enough to hold the people Matti and Jed had managed to pick up. Pan didn't bother to learn their names. At the moment she honestly didn't care. It took her a while to notice that Erica wasn't there and when she looked at Robert for guidance, he simply shook his head.

Had they killed her? Or had they taken her? But why would they take her? What would they want her for?

Pan sat in the sitting area of the cabin, watching as Robert and Daryl tried to re-wire the telly to work again. She felt numb, a feeling she had never experienced before. It was strange. A large part of her couldn't believe that it was over, her brother was gone. She was his older sister, she was supposed to look after him. _She _was supposed to _look after him._

And she'd failed.

"Why is there so many red wires?" Daryl muttered. He stepped back and rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. "There shouldn't be so many red wires."

"They connect to the yellow ones to produce picture and the blue ones to hook the speakers," Robert said quietly. Pan could only see the top of his head as he worked. The screen still showed static, but occasionally a picture would come through, only to flicker back into nothing.

Pan buried her face into her knees. "Trust you to know," she mumbled.

Robert ignored her and handed Daryl a satellite. "Hold this by the window," he said. "I'll tell you when the picture comes through."

Daryl did as he was told and held the satellite out the window, moving it around and adjusting it. A variety of things happened to the screen. At first it stayed just as static but eventually a clear picture came through. "Stop," Robert said. "Hold it there."

Everyone crowded around the television. A newsreporter came on screen, telling everyone to stay indoors. Pan couldn't believe what they were saying. Stay indoors? If those soliders wanted to, they could break down their doors with their bare hands. What good was staying indoors?

Jed stepped forward and pushed Darly so he lost his balance and they lost the connection. "It's all bullshit," he muttered before leaving.

The room was silent for a moment after he left. Jed was the only person in the whole cabin who had fought in a war, he would know what he was talking about. But why would the media lie? Were they on the Koreans' side? Were they being forced? Threatened, maybe?

"Are people actually believing this?" Pan asked. She hadn't realized how unused her voice was until she started speaking again. "They couldn't be, right?"

"You'd be surprised what people believe in distressing situations," said Matti.

"So what do we do? Do we just sit and wait for them to find us?" asked Daryl.

"Surely they wouldn't look here, it's the middle of nowhere," one of the people who followed them in a car said.

"They'll probably be looking anywhere," Robert replied. "No stone unturned."

"No stone unturned," repeated Pan, almost trancelike.

Daryl put down the satellite and sat down on the floor. "If that's true," he whispered quietly, "then it won't be long before they find us."

No, it probably wasn't.

~xXx~

Someone was coming.

Everyone heard it. Even in the dark, when they were supposed to be sleeping, they heard the engine reeving and the wheels grinding the dirt into the ground. Matti and Jed went outside, both armed with guns, ordering the others to stay indoors. Pan and Robert got onto their knees and peered outside, to where the brothers were talking aobut something.

Matti returned a second later. "Everyone, get down and switch off the lights," he ordered.

Pan ignored him and kept looking out, even when the dark clouded her eyes. She wasn't going to take orders from someone she barely knew. When Robert obeidently obeyed, she threw him a confused scowl. Robert grabbed her arm and dragged her to the floor, hissing, "Don't be difficult."

Pan wasn't sure how long they sat in the dark and waited. It felt like hours but it was in reality only two minutes before Pete, some guy who also came in the car, took matters into his own hands. "Fuck this," he muttered.

"Pete," Matti hissed but the blond ignored him, standing up and pulling a gun out of his back pocket. "Pete!"

"Shit," Pan whispered. She got up and followed them as they exited the cabin. Pete lifted his gun and fired at the headlights approaching them, the shot shattering the silence of the night. Pan covered her ears but it was too late, the fired bullet already having tore her ear drums.

"Hold your fire!" Jed came out of the dark and jogged toward them. He imemdiately went for Matti, because he was the one who had the only other gun. "You almost blew my head off!" he yelled.

"It wasn't me!" Matti exclaimed.

Jed noticed the gun in Pete's hand. "I thought they got past you," said Pete.

"Give me the gun," Jed said fimly.

"I'm not giving you dick," he fired back acidly.

Pan self consciously edged closer to Robert, fisting his coat sleeve in her hand. She had never seen so many guns at once and the fact that all you had to do was squeeze the trigger to kill someone unnerved her. Jed overpowered Pete, grabbing the gun and pushing him over.

Pete didn't try to grab it back, which was a good thing as all it would have achieved was creating more conflict. And more conflict was not what they needed right now.

The approaching car hadn't been a threat. It just had just contained a few people Jed and Matti seemed to know. Pan recognized one of them as Toni, Erica's older sister. She hadn't been aware that the soliders had taken Erica and Matti had the horrific job of telling her.

When their was an issue with the sleeping arrangements, and there was an odd number of blankets, Pan and Robert volunteered to share. They had been doing it ever since they were kids after all, and didn't mind doing it now. The only difference between then and now was that they were being invaded.

As everyone else fell asleep, Pan found herself lying awake, staring at the ceiling. She was incredibly aware of Robert's presence beside her, so close and yet so far, which was strange because it had never really posed a problem before. Maybe she was still coming down from the adrenalin from all the rushing around, and she was hyperaware of all her surroundings.

How had she not noticed that something like this was coming? Maybe they could have been more prepared. She had heard of the trouble with North Korea on the news occasionally, but she had always believed it would be something that would blow over. Nothing to worry about, just some country-to-country drama. Never had she expected an invasion to come.

When she wished for a more exicting life, this wasn't what she meant.

Just as the sun was peeking out over the horizon, Jed entered the room and kicked Matti's foot. "Wake up," he said. "Pete and his friend have taken off. And they've taken all our food."

Shit.

**A/N: R&R with your thoughts?**


End file.
